mardi 29 janvier 2013

The European Jewish Congress on
Sunday demanded that the Sunday Times apologize for publishing a cartoon
depicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu building a wall on top of
Palestinians with their blood standing in for cement.The uproar that erupted over the
cartoon was particularly offensive due to its publication on
International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Jewish groups led by the American Jewish Congress (AJC) has demanded that popular German daily Stuttgarter Zeitung
apologize to Jewish people for publishing a cartoon which implies that
Netanyahu is ready to kill the latest Israel-Palestinian peace talks
initiated by John Kerry.(Cartoon below )Editors Note

The
caricature (top left) shows Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu
sitting on a park bench, pouring poison from a bottle labeled
“settlement construction” over a piece of bread which apparently he
intends to feed to a (Mahmoud Abbas) Palestinian peace dove.

“Israel lobby” used pressure and false allegations as leverage to pressure the institution to break an existing contract.

by Dr. Ludwig Watzal

13th August 2013. Due to the pressure from the “Israel lobby”, events
and exhibitions about Palestine can hardly take place in Germany
anymore. The pro- Zionist “Israel lobby” is well organized. When an
event is announced publicly, perfectly organized machinery is set in
motion, which exercises massive pressure on those who provide the
premises for a Palestinian event. Consequently, it has become almost
impossible to have an open discussion about Israel’s brutal occupation
and the colonization in Palestine.

The latest “success” of the public bullying of organizations was
garnered in Berlin. The cultural department of the Iranian Embassy in
Berlin wanted to organize a conference entitled “Palestine – Peace based
on justice” on Friday, August 16, 2013 at the educational institution
“Urania”. All formalities were cleared. Speakers were committed among
them the journalist Petra Wild who just published a book entitled
“Apartheid and ethnic cleansing of Palestine: The Zionist settler
colonialism in word and deed”, the film-makers Stefanie Landgraf and
Johannes Gulde who’s film “We refuse to be enemies” was highly acclaimed
but also defamed by the lobby in cooperation with one of the cities
deputy majors in Nuremberg, Dr. Gabi Weber who runs the organization
“Café Palestine” in Freiburg, Raif Hussein, the chairman of the
German-Palestine society, and Dr. Yavuz Özoguz who operates the website
“Muslim Market” who is also regularly defamed.

Because of the extent of bullying from the “Israel lobby”, the
director of “Urania”, Dr. Ulrich Bleyer, unceremoniously pulled back the
already given commitment. In addition to the usual extremist suspects,1 the chairman of the German-Israeli society, Reinhold Robbe (SPD), wrote a letter2
to Bleyer in which he not only misquoted the newly elected Iranian
President Hassan Rohani, but also sets this misquotation in relation to
the unspeakable German historical past. In this case, the “Israel lobby”
used pressure and false allegations as leverage to pressure the
institution to break an existing contract.

Dr. Bleyer wrote inter alia to the Iranian Embassy: “The program and
the research on the speakers can clearly expect that our statutory goal
of international understanding, which is also defined in the terms of
our agreements as a condition of hire is not respected.” Why didn’t the
director of “Urania” inform himself beforehand? He further was afraid
that the speakers could challenge “Israel’s right to exist” and
legitimize terrorism as “a form of resistance against an occupying
power”. Dr. Bleyer expected a “large number of protesters”, and “that
there will be clashes during the event or at the Urania.” The threats in
the protest letters must have been so intimidating that he has canceled
the event.

Cafe Palestine and Dr. Gabi Weber are increasingly in the crosshairs
of this lobby, too. It prevented a lecture by Prof. Christophe Oberlin
of the University of Paris on the topic “Plastic Surgery in Gaza” at the
University of Freiburg. The lobby is always operating on the same
pattern. Defame and put pressure on the institutions hoping that the
Germans are already buckling which they regularly do. “Café Palestine”
had to sue the University before the Administrative Court in Freiburg
and won.3

Bonn – Another
object of “desire” of the lobby is the traveling exhibition “Nakba –
flight and expulsion of Palestinians in 1948″, which is organized by
“Refugee children in Lebanon”, headed by Ms. Ingrid Rumpf. The
organizers and the local authorities are put under pressure by
German-Jewish and Israeli organizations. The goal is not about the
discourse on this dubious chapter in the history of Israel. With the
argument that the issue is one-sided and tendentious whose prohibition
is required and sometimes enforced. Like always, the “brave” Germans
buckle.

The problem is not so much the “power” of the “Israel lobby” but
rather the submissiveness of their German “friends”. If the lobby cannot
rely on their uncritical and vile support, they can easily refute
because the lobby does not have real arguments. Chas Freeman, a former
U. S. ambassador, was bullied by the “Israel lobby” before he could even
take a job in the Obama administration. His characterization of this
form of public bullying holds also true for the German branch4:
“The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and
indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation,
and the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods,
and an utter disregard for the truth.”

It is high time for the Germans to recognize that the commitment for
freedom in Palestine has become a fight for our own freedom of speech.
Let aside the totalitarian control of all the peoples of the world by
the U. S. Empire.